Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week, as I mentioned briefly in my last post, mine was a little bit of a chaotic one, it did not stop after my mad weekend. I made some slightly over-ambitious theatre plans, not really realising how tired I would be: I had booked a ticket to Wicked during London Theatre Week last month, so I was there last Tuesday evening. I loved it as always, Wicked is one of my favourite shows and it was great to see the new cast, Alexia Khadime and Lucy St Louis were fantastic as Elphaba and Glinda. Unfortunately the audience behaviour left something to be desired, with phones, crunchy popcorn and chatting all around me, but I had a great seat for a cheap price thanks to the sale and the show was fantastic.
Then I was at Moulin Rouge on Wednesday night as I finally lucked out with Bohemian Seats after multiple times of trying and got a really great stalls seat for £30 and that was as always a fantastic show, I really love this current cast. I was back at Operation Mincemeat on Thursday after a lottery win and got to see a new combo of Sean Carey as Charlie and Holly Sumpton as Jean which was great. To round all of that off, on Sunday, two of the cast of Operation Mincemeat, Jak Malone and Claire-Marie Hall did a cabaret at Brasserie Zedel and that was such a fun afternoon/early evening, their song choices were great, I loved getting to hear a lot of songs I’d never heard before and it was cool to hear them sing stuff outside of Mincemeat for a change. This week is thankfully a quieter one, which is much needed, but I am going to Leigh Bardugo’s London event for her new book on Friday, and I’m very excited for that.
Anyway, it’s Tuesday (yes actually Tuesday this time!) and so time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is Books I Have On My Shelf I’d Like To Read Soon, which I feel unbelievably called out by-I have so many because I’ve largely switched to reading mostly via audiobook in the last couple of years, so my physical TBR pile has been growing at a rate faster than I am reading it. There are so many books on my shelves that I really want to read but I’ve just got out of the habit of making time for physical books. I need to get back into it, but it has been slow going. Anyway, here are some of the books on my shelves I would really like to get around to at some point in the not too distant future:
The Mask Falling (The Bone Season #4)-Samantha Shannon
Okay here’s the deal with this one. I started it in 2021 before I hit a horrendous reading slump and my reading just nose dived off a cliff that if I’m being honest, it’s never quite recovered from. I was a fair way through it as well, I think like 300 odd pages, but I hit this slump, my Netgalley copy expired and I never got back around to it. At this point, I will need to start again because I remember nothing from three years ago, but as we now know the 5th book is going to come out next year, I really need to actually get around to reading this one so that I’m caught up.
2. The Bronzed Beasts (The Gilded Wolves #3)-Roshani Chokshi
I was so excited about this one! The Silvered Serpents left on a gigantic cliffhanger, I was massively excited to read it….and then 2021 reading slump hit and this was another victim. Honestly it’s a miracle I read anything that year (and that miracle is called audiobooks). I would like to finally finish this series though and find out what happened to Severin and the gang.
3. Once Upon A Broken Heart-Stephanie Garber
I HAVE ALL THREE BOOKS IN THIS SERIES! I WENT TO STEPHANIE GARBER’S LONDON EVENT FOR BOOK THREE LAST YEAR. Have I read a single one of the books? No, no I have not. I want to, I do but as I said since 2021, I just really haven’t been reading physical books all that much and those I have been reading, I’ve been reading very slowly. I will get around to this one….eventually.
4. The Chalice of The Gods-Rick Riordan
This one only came out last year, so this is slightly better but still, you would think I would have jumped on a new Percy Jackson adventure with the original trio. I do think I might get around to this one a little sooner than some of the others as it is very short and short is very appealing to me at the moment!
5. Hell Bent-Leigh Bardugo
Again I went to the launch event for this one in January last year, and I’ve still not read it. In my defence, it is very chunky and I’ve been working my way (slowly) through The Fragile Threads of Power since the end of last year so I cannot commit to another really chunky book at the moment. I also need to look up a summary of Ninth House before I read it because can I remember a single thing that happened in that book? No, no I cannot. Speaking of chunky Leigh Bardugo books I need to read, I need to finally get around to reading Rule of Wolves, but I read King of Scars in 2019 and once again, cannot remember it all that well, so I’ll need to dive into a recap before I eventually do pick that one up.
6. Endgame (Noughts and Crosses #6)-Malorie Blackman
For such a massive Noughts and Crosses fan as a kid, you’d think I’d have read this as soon as it came out, but without meaning to sound like a broken record, it came out in 2021 and that was not a good reading year for me. I also wasn’t totally enamoured with Crossfire so I think I’ve not prioritised it as much as I otherwise would but I would like to see how Malorie decided to end this series that meant so much to me as a kid.
7. All of Us Villains-Amanda Foody and C.L. Herman
This is another victim of my 2021 reading slump-basically a lot of great sounding books came out in 2021 and I read exactly none of them! This one sounds so great and so up my alley, it’s basically a Villains Magical Hunger Games and few things could get me as excited as the idea of that. I know I enjoy Amanda Foody’s books as well, so this one really should be a surefire win for me….when I eventually get round to it.
8. Good Girl, Bad Blood (A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder #2)-Holly Jackson
I loved A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder and I bought both the sequels, but have I read them? No. I did start Good Girl, Bad Blood but again I was feeling slumpy and only got a few chapters in. I have to admit, I don’t think that A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder really needed to be a series and I do think that might partially be why I’ve been dragging my heels on the sequel, because I don’t particularly have a need for answers or anything but I would like to actually read and finish this one at some point. Maybe the TV series coming out in July will give me the push I need to continue on.
9. Mad Honey-Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
I love Jodi Picoult, she’s one of my favourite authors, and yet her most recent release is still sitting on my shelf. I do think that may partly be because her more recent releases haven’t been my favourites-well specifically I was disappointment by The Book of Two Ways, I did enjoy A Spark of Light, but in general, my favourite of her stuff has been her older work, the last five star book of hers I read was The Storyteller and that was released almost a decade ago. But still, I am intrigued by this one, it sounds like she’s gone back a bit more to her court case roots with this one which I always enjoyed and the story does sound interesting so I do need to get round to it, it’s just a case of when.
10. Only Ashes Remain (Market of Monsters #2)-Rebecca Schaeffer
I bought this right after finishing Not Even Bones because I was so excited after the way Not Even Bones ended and then I somehow just….didn’t read it? It wasn’t even 2021, this was 2020 and I read A LOT in 2020 because of lockdown and not having much else to do, so I really actually have no explanation as to why I did not get to this one. Of course, now, I have forgotten most of the plot of Not Even Bones so I will need to find a synopsis to read before diving into this one!
So there we have it, 10 Books I Have On My Shelf I’d Like To Read Soon. Have you read any of these? Did you enjoy them? What book has been sitting unread on your shelf the longest? Let me know in the comments!
Now I’m going to be on holiday in Italy for the next two weeks from Monday and I’m definitely not going to be sitting down and writing blog posts at any point during that holiday, so I’m not actually sure if I’ll have a Top Ten Tuesday post for you guys again till the 14th May, it honestly depends whether I get the time/want to sit down and write and schedule two posts over the weekend. We shall see, but if not, then I’ll see you all again on the 14th May, for the Favourite Book Quotes topic!
Hi all! It’s been a bit of a mad one these last few days, so this is coming to you on Wednesday rather than Tuesday but I honestly just have not had the time to sit down and write this before now. I had an incredibly full on weekend, which has basically almost entirely revolved around Operation Mincemeat, as a lot of the Mincemeat fans (including me) were at the show on Saturday because Holly Sumpton was on for her second cover as Bevan (and others) which has only previously happened one time before in December, so it was an incredibly exciting and wonderful night and she of course absolutely smashed it.
Then a lot of us were at the Olivier Awards on Sunday to support Mincemeat as they were up for quite a few awards, and they ONLY WENT AND WON BEST NEW MUSICAL! Jak Malone also got an award for Best Supporting Actor In A Musical and to say that we were thrilled for all of them is probably a bit of an understatement, I reckon the entire Royal Albert Hall and most of South Kensington could hear us cheer when they won. A lot of us were then back at the show yesterday for another special cosplay event to celebrate their win, and it was such a magical show, we had three covers on, Geri Allen, Christian Andrews and Holly Sumpton and the atmosphere in the room following the win and the excitement of a triple cover show was just electric, it was the most wonderful night. I am of course now exhausted and could sleep for an entire week but being the idiot I am, I’ve got lots of other theatre plans for this week (and some of them are even things other than Mincemeat!) so that won’t be happening!
Anyway, it’s not Tuesday, but it’s time for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday (on a Wednesday). Today’s topic was meant to be Characters I’d Go On Holiday With (I can’t say vacation, I just can’t!) but even though I’ve done it twice before, I liked Jana’s topic of Books I’ve Read On Holiday better and thought I had enough to fill a third list, so here we go again, Books I’ve Read On Holiday, Take Three:
The Mad Girls of New York-Maya Rodale-Melbourne
This was the audiobook I was listening to when I was in Australia for Christmas back in 2022, running round the park in Melbourne listening to this certainly felt very different to my usual run around Clapham Common-for one thing running round Clapham Common in December is much, much colder!
2. I Must Betray You-Ruta Sepetys-Carcassonne/Toulouse
Okay so technically I was mostly reading this on the plane home, though I think I did read a little bit when I was actually staying in France for my birthday last year, so it still counts. Apparently I have a tradition of choosing Ruta Sepetys books to read on holiday in France because I read some of Salt To The Sea there too!
3. Unwholly-Neal Shusterman-Carcassonne
As I mentioned in my first Books I Read On Holiday post, I read the entire Unwind series either in whole or in part in France, and this was one of the ones that I read from start to finish there. I think it was this book where I was sat in an IKEA car park for ages reading whilst waiting for my parents to finish shopping, but it was very good so it did while my time away very well.
4. Capturing The Devil-Keri Maniscalco-Cape Town
I finished off the Stalking Jack The Ripper series in Cape Town whilst I was there volunteering in 2020, I had started Escaping From Houdini, the third book in the UK and finished it off in Cape Town but I read the entirety of Capturing The Devil whilst there. I can’t say it was my favourite book of the series but at least I read it whilst I was somewhere cool!
5. City of Nightmares-Rebecca Schaeffer-Stirling
This was the audiobook that I was listening to when I went up to Stirling for my Christmas holiday last year, I didn’t quite finish all of it when I was up there but I did get a decent chunk read whilst I was up there.
6. Wilder Girls-Rory Power-Cape Town
Another one that I read whilst I was in Cape Town, I wasn’t the biggest fan of this one, it kind of creeped me out, a little too horror focused for my liking but at least I can say that the place where I read it was very memorable.
7. The Time Traveler’s Wife-Audrey Nifenegger-US
I can’t actually remember which US trip I read this on, I think it was the first one we did in 2009, when we drove up the west coast of the US because we went to see the film when we were in Seattle, made a mistake with the address of the cinema and thought it was 1000 and something rather than 10000 and something, got the taxi to drop us off far too early and had to walk a horrendously long way, almost missing the start of the film. But anyway, that’s why I think it was that trip because I definitely read the book before I saw the film because I was disappointed that the film wasn’t as good. In hindsight, I was probably a bit young to be reading The Time Traveler’s Wife in 2009 as I was only 12 on this trip I think, but my mum and sister had both read it and I borrowed it from my sister so it’s not like they didn’t know what was in it.
8. The Hammer of Thor-York
This wasn’t exactly a holiday, my mum and I stopped off in York when she was driving me back up to Uni after my second year reading week to stay overnight as it’s a long way up to Scotland. But still, it was reading somewhere that wasn’t at home, however briefly I was in said place. York is a really lovely city, I wish I had been able to spend more time there and I’d definitely like to go back for a longer visit.
9. Days of Blood and Starlight-Stirling and Glasgow
Technically I was still partially living in Scotland at this point as I was still at Uni, but as this was during the summer holidays, I count this as a book I read on holiday, I was reading this one when we went up to watch the Gymnastics at the European Championships in Glasgow in 2018. I didn’t love the book but the gymnastics was very exciting so it’s still tied to a memory of something fun even if I didn’t enjoy the book itself.
10. Unbound-Neal Shusterman-Leeds
Apparently I have a thing with reading the Unwind books on trips because I read this one partially on a trip down to visit a friend of mine at University in Leeds, it was a very good book to while away the four hour train journey from Stirling to Leeds (and the four hour journey back the other way!).
So there we have it, 10 more books that I’ve read on holiday over the years! And I’ll be able to add more to the list soon as I’m going to be going to Italy for two weeks in just under two weeks time, so that’s very exciting. Have you read books in any cool places you’ve visited? Have you been to any of the places on my list? Any fun stories about books you’ve read on holiday? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, this time we’ll be talking about Unread Books On My Shelves I Want To Read Soon and I feel aggressively called out by this topic because I have so many, so this could be a long one!
Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these. I went to an art exhibition with a friend of mine on Saturday called Frameless which was really cool, it’s an immersive art experience and they basically have four galleries with different styles of artwork in them and the art is projected onto the wall, but it’s not like a still picture, the art moves and there’s music and it basically feels like you’re in the art in a way? It was a very cool way to experience some of these really famous artists. Then in the evening I went to a Taylor Swift by Candlelight concert, which was with the same group who did the Musicals By Candlelight concert I went to earlier in the year (and at the same venue, The Actors Church in Covent Garden) and that was really lovely, they had some really lovely arrangements of Taylor’s songs and it was nice to hear songs I knew so well in a different way.
That actually brings me quite nicely onto today’s topic. It’s Tuesday and so time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s topic is a freebie, and as it is three years since Fearless (Taylor’s Version), the first of her rerecorded albums came out, I thought I would do another of my Book Matches posts and this time do Fearless Book Matches. I’m really excited to do this one as Fearless is one of my favourites of Taylor’s albums. This will work the same way as the ones I’ve done before, I’ll be matching each song on Fearless to a book I feel fits the vibe of that song. As before, I won’t be doing the vault songs as I think it’s fairer that way as I’ve not done the vault songs for any of the others and I will be starting with the bonus tracks rather than Fearless as the album I originally had was Fearless Platinum and that had the bonus tracks first, so I’m going with the order I’m more used to! Anyway, on with the matching (caution this post does contain spoilers for some of the books as I couldn’t really talk about plot points that I used for matching without spoilers!):
Jump Then Fall-Paired With: Alex and Eliza
Honestly it was kind of hard for me to pick a book that I had read that fitted with the vibe of this song as I don’t read a whole lot of romance but as much as I didn’t really love Alex and Eliza as a book, I feel like the main relationship works quite well for this song as Hamilton and Eliza fall quite hard and fast for each other and stick together through difficult times.
2. Untouchable-Paired With: The Second Summer of The Sisterhood (Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants #2)
I realise I used Lena and Kostos’ relationship as a comparison for All You Had To Do Was Stay in the last book, however Untouchable really fits with where they are in this book, Lena has broken up with him and misses him a lot and really wants to get back together but when they finally do reunite, circumstances keep them apart and they just can’t get on the same page at the same time.
3. Forever And Always (Piano Version-I will only be including the acoustic version in here as it is the same song)-Paired With: Beyond The Horizon
Okay a middle grade series I read when I was younger might seem like a bit of a rogue choice, but I swear this works perfectly for where Amy and Ty are at in this book, she’s gone off to college, he’s stayed back behind at Heartland and when she comes home for break, their relationship just isn’t quite the same and neither of them quite know why, they’re trying desperately hard to hang onto the relationship because they thought they’d be together forever, but it just isn’t quite working and I think that reflects quite well the feeling I get from Forever and Always.
4. Come In With The Rain-Paired With: Burn (Pure Trilogy #3)
Lyda’s journey in Burn with her relationship with Partridge, I think is really well encapsulated in the lyrics of this song. She loves Partridge, she wants to be with him but she’s sick and tired of trying to get him to come through for her and though she hopes that it will work out in the end and he will realise that he wants to be with her, she’s not going to chase after him to make it happen.
5. Superstar-Paired With: The Fandom
This was kind of a difficult one to pair, as I couldn’t think of many books I’d read about people having a celebrity crush and was kind of struggling. So this one is kind of a stretch but I decided to go with The Fandom as it is a story about being a fan? I was struggling guys, okay!
6. The Other Side of The Door-Paired With: The Librarian of Burned Books
Okay, I know I paired this with a song in the last one but all the books I could think of that were perfect for this song were ones I had used before and this was just so perfect that I couldn’t not use it again. Again I can’t really explain why this is so perfect without giving away major book spoilers but I promise you, it really is perfect for Hannah and Althea’s relationship arc.
7. Fearless-Paired With: Mia Goes Fourth (The Princess Diaries #4)
I have not read this book in years but from what I can remember of it, it definitely has the right vibes for Fearless as this is the book where Mia and Michael have finally got together and are starting to go out so it has all the same first date, first love vibes that the song Fearless has.
8. Fifteen-Paired With: Heading Home
It’s been a long time since I read this one, but it fits the vibes of Fifteen perfectly, because it’s all about growing up, falling in love, trying to figure everything out and failing and realising that it’s actually okay not to have everything all worked out and what you wanted when you were young won’t necessarily be what you want now.
9. Love Story-Paired With: The Grisha Trilogy
This was actually a really hard one to pair because it’s so hard to think of a Romeo and Juliet type story where things actually end up well for the couple! All the ones I could think of, I was like, nope can’t use that, that ends in tragedy. So in the end I decided I would go for the Grisha Trilogy, using Ruin & Rising to represent it here as I can’t fit in all three books: much as I may not personally love them as a couple, Mal and Alina do fit the story told in Love Story very well, they meet when they are very young (as children), are pulled apart when they grow up due to Alina being Grisha and Mal not being but come back together in spite of all the odds against them and end up with their happily ever after.
10. Hey Stephen-Paired With: Third Time Lucky (The Princess Diaries #3)
This was another one that was really hard to pair because I don’t have a whole lot of books that fit the “crush” type theme, I just don’t read a lot of romance, so it’s hard to find books like that that I’ve actually read! Cute, fluffy? Who is she? I don’t know her! So again, I resorted to a Princess Diaries book because they are fairly light and fluffy and I apparently did enjoy that for a brief period, enough to read the entire series. This one works well with Hey Stephen as it’s the book where Mia is crushing hard on Michael and is frustrated that he doesn’t “see” her.
11. White Horse-Paired With: The Exact Opposite Of Okay
I know this is going to seem like a bit of an out there choice, given that this is a funny book and White Horse is not a funny song and this book isn’t about a breakup as such which White Horse definitely is BUT: in a different way, this song perfectly encapsulates Danny and his attitude towards Izzy, though they never actually go out, Danny treats Izzy terribly and does some horrible things all in the name of supposedly liking her and he expects everything to be like a fairy tale and that he can do all these grand romantic gestures and it will win her back over, but life doesn’t work like that and much like in the song, Izzy realises that she can do much better than Danny and that she deserves better in her life, even if it’s in a friend way rather than a romantic way. Might seem like a bit of a leap of logic, but it makes sense to me and that’s all that really counts for this list.
12. You Belong With Me-Paired With: Before The Devil Breaks You
(I really wish I could use the original music video for this as I love it so much, but as we only support Taylor’s Versions in this house, the lyric video will have to do!).
I was to-ing and fro-ing between whether to choose Lair of Dreams or Before The Devil Breaks You for this, as both books involve Evie to-ing and fro-ing between Jericho and Sam and both of them trying to convince her that they’re the right one for her but in the end, I decided to go for Before The Devil Breaks You as that’s when the love triangle really comes to a head and Evie decides who she “belongs with”. I didn’t love the way the resolution of the love triangle came about but you can read more about that in my full review of the book, if you’re interested.
13. Breathe-Paired With: The Rose Code
I’ve not read nearly enough books about friendship break-ups which is such a shame because it is genuinely devastating when you lose touch with a friend that you really cared about or your relationship disintegrates because you just no longer work in each other’s lives. The Rose Code was an absolute gut punch for this as I got so invested in Mab, Osla and Beth’s friendship and to watch it all fall apart like it does was truly devastating.
14. Tell Me Why-Paired With: The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
I picked this book for this song because I feel like the dynamic talked about in the song is very similar to dynamic between Amina and Raksh. Amina is never quite sure whether she is coming or going with him, he’s a very contrary character and kind of impossible to pin down and I feel like that echoes what Taylor sings about the guy in this song.
15. You’re Not Sorry-Paired With: A Court of Mist and Fury
This song really suits Tamlin and Feyre’s arc for this book as Feyre comes to realise Tamlin’s true colours and how he has treated her and decides that she wants him out of her life because despite his protestations, he’s not particularly sorry for the way that he treats her.
16. The Way I Loved You-Paired With: Almost Love
I know that I used this book in my Speak Now list with Haunted but it works so damn well for this song too, in fact I’d say maybe even a little better than Haunted. In the present of this book, Sarah is in a new relationship, with a nice, sweet, sensible guy who all her friends like. However much like in The Way I Loved You, she is totally stuck on, and can’t stop thinking about her ex Matthew who was terrible to her but she was completely obsessed with.
17. The Best Day-Paired With: Moxie
This is another one that was kind of hard for me to pick one for because I read a lot of books where mothers are either dead or their kids don’t have the best relationship with them, so it’s really hard to pick one where I’m like yes, this is a good one. However, in Moxie, Viv does have a really lovely, supportive relationship with her mum so I thought that would be a good one for this!
18. Change-Paired With: Looking For Jane
I almost used this one for The Best Day because it is all about motherhood, but I liked it better for this one because above anything else, the women in Looking For Jane are fighting for their right to choose, fighting for freedom, fighting for change and it’s a fight that way see over decades and we get to see them ultimately triumph, so it seemed like the perfect fit for a triumphant song like Change.
So there we go, those are my Book Matches, for Fearless (Taylor’s Version). That was a lot harder than I thought and a lot harder than Speak Now or 1989 were, surprisingly! It was Tuesday when I started writing this, now it’s early Wednesday morning! Do you agree with my matches? Do you have any other suggestions of books that would go well with these songs? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday (hopefully actually on Tuesday this time), we’ll be talking about Characters I’d Like To Go On Holiday With. That feels like something I may have done before, but I will have a check and see!
Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, mine was surprisingly quiet for a change but I’m going to have an incredibly busy April so that’s probably a good thing! I was working over the Easter bank holiday (my choice, Easter isn’t really a big deal for my family) but we did have a nice roast dinner on Sunday and me and my mum made a cheesecake which actually turned out really well.
Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so it’s time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is April Showers (very apt for the weather in the UK at the moment!) and so I’ve decided to do Books With Water Related Titles, I could have done just rain but I decided to go a bit more broad and include any body of water, water related weather event etc. So here we go:
Siege and Storm (Shadow and Bone #2)-Leigh Bardugo
Not only does this book have “storm” in the title, it’s very water focused as much of the book takes place at sea as Alina searches for the second amplifier, the Sea Serpent in order to build up enough power to beat the Darkling.
2. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson #1)-Rick Riordan
The first title I thought of when I decided to do this theme for the topic, Percy is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea and the book centres around the quest to retrieve Zeus’s lightning bolt and thunderstorms generally involve rain so works on multiple levels! Also I just love Percy Jackson and will find any excuse to work it into TTT.
3. The River of Silver-SA Chakraborty
If you love the Daevabad trilogy, I highly recommend checking on this collection of short stories in the same world-I am not normally a big short story person and I really enjoyed it. I have to admit, I don’t totally get where the title came from since as far as I can remember, rivers only play a part in like one of these stories, but ah well it works for the topic!
4. Salt To The Sea-Ruta Sepetys
A very sad and very water focused book as it takes places completely on the sea (as suggested by the title) and follows the story of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a real life maritime disaster that occurred on the 30th January 1945, when the ship which was carrying over 10,000 war personnel and refugees to safety was sunk by a Soviet submarine and over 9,000 people died. The book follows fictional characters but is very much based on the true events.
5. Black Ice-Young Sherlock Holmes #3-Andrew Lane
Yup I’m counting water in different forms as well, so Ice is fair game here! This is the third of the Young Sherlock mysteries which I really enjoyed when I was a teenager and this one is set largely in Russia, hence the Ice of the title.
6. Sea of Monsters-Percy Jackson #2-Rick Riordan
Yes, another Percy book but it was right there, very low hanging fruit! This one is actually my least favourite of the original 5, I still enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong, I just like the other books in the series a little better. This definitely fits for a water related book though as Percy, Annabeth and Grover spend most of the book on a ship sailing across the Sea of Monsters (read Bermuda Triangle) to find the Golden Fleece in order to heal the magical borders which protect Camp Half-Blood.
7. Girls Made of Snow and Glass-Melissa Bashardoust
I didn’t particularly enjoy this one, the characters were a little flat and the plot a little dull for me, but the title fits the topic well enough for the same reason as Ice.
8. Sea Witch-Sarah Henning
Again, not one I particularly enjoyed much, but it does work for the topic as it contains a body of water in the title. This is an origin story of the story of the Sea Witch from the Little Mermaid, but it ended up being quite dry for a villain origin story which should have been quite compelling.
9. Thicker Than Water (Heartland #8)-Lauren Brooke
A rare occasion when I have cause to use a Heartland book in a TTT but there you go! This book actually has nothing at all to do with water, the main storyline is Amy reconnecting with her estranged father after many years (the title coming from the well known and oft misquoted “Blood is thicker than water”) but the topic did not specify that the book actually needed to be water related, just water in the title!
10. Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5)-Sarah J Maas
I am still not over the ending of this book even almost eight years later! It’s been a while since I read this book, but I do remember it’s the one where they spend a lot of time at sea, everything starts moving into place for the big final battle and of course, that ending.
So there we go, Books With Water Related Titles. That actually ended up being far harder than I thought it would be because I’ve read a lot of books that are set on the sea but it turns out not very many of them actually have water related words in their titles which was a bit frustrating! Have you read any of these books? What books with water related titles can you think of? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, this one is a freebie, and as April 9th is the 3-year anniversary of the release of Fearless (Taylor’s Version), I thought I would continue my fun little Taylor Swift Book Matches series and do Fearless Book Matches, which should be really fun as it was the album that started my Taylor Swift obsession!
Hi all! This is much later than I planned as my 10th blog anniversary was actually last month (I did a special Top Ten Tuesday post to celebrate on the day) and I meant to have this up the same week but it was a busy week for me and I just didn’t get around to it. Still better late than never and the topic I’m going to talk about today is something that I’ve had on my mind for a while, and this celebration of 10 years of blogging seemed like a good time to share my thoughts on it as I reflect back on the last 10 years.
I’ve heard for a long time that blogging is a dying art. To be honest, even when I started back in 2014, I’m sure people were saying that longform written content was dying and that Instagram was where it was at. I came to blogging I guess comparatively late to when blogging was really popular in the early-mid 2000s (but then I was very young at that point) and for years I’ve never really believed that was true. Sure Bookstagram was popular and increasing in popularity when I first started blogging ten years ago, but it still felt like there was a space for blogging and a thriving community around book blogging in particular. It was fairly easy to find my people in this sphere and make connections with other bloggers, and after a slow start in 2014, my blog started going from strength to strength and I was able to feel part of the community particularly after joining Top Ten Tuesday in 2015 and being able to connect with so many different bloggers through that. There were various live chats on Twitter like #UKYAChat, blogger events, big events like YALC, there were so many ways to make connections.
And despite the fact that blogging has supposedly been decreasing in popularity, there’s been an upward trend in my views year on year, barring 2019 where for some reason there was a bit of a dip but in general, I’ve had more views on my content each year than the previous one. So you might say, well what’s the problem then? What’s the big difference that you’ve noticed in blogging since 2014? Have things really changed that much?
Well for a while, no. I’ve always done somewhat longer form content than many other bloggers because I enjoy it and it works for me and whilst that has changed in the last few years and I’ve been doing longer form content less frequently, it’s been more to do with my own personal time constraints than a reflection of wider blogging trends. I’ve always found that my longer form content got less engagement than shorter form content like Top Ten Tuesday lists but I enjoy doing the long form content enough that I didn’t really mind that.
However in the past year or so, I’ve definitely noticed a shift in blogging and that has been less engagement across the board. I’ve been producing roughly the same amount of content, maybe slightly less, but whilst the views have increased, the actual engagement with my content, comments etc, has dramatically decreased, particularly with Top Ten Tuesday posts. I imagine some of that can be attributed to my also engaging less with others’ posts: I don’t have the same time as I used to to spend hours blog hopping so I have been engaging less with the linkups and that does obviously have an effect on the comments I get on my own blog. But I do think it’s indicative of a wider trend in book blogging which is the major thing that I think has changed over the past ten years: the sense of community we had as book bloggers is gone.
I say I’ve noticed this over the past year or so and that is true for Top Ten Tuesday, I started noticing towards the end of last year that the engagement with my Top Ten Tuesday posts which have consistently been my most popular posts since I started doing them in 2015 had become significantly less. But I think the disconnect in the book blogger community goes back way further than that, at least it does for me. I first started really engaging in the book blogger community in 2015, and there used to be so many things to get involved with. I loved discussing books with everyone during #UKYAChat every Friday, and there was always such a wonderful shared joy in those chats. People were always so willing to engage with each other on Twitter and whilst there was always discourse about various things, the shared love of books generally seemed to be the most important.
But steadily over the years, the sense of community that was present when I first started blogging seemed to slowly fade away at least when it comes to Twitter: I have never really been part of the Bookstagram community, so I can’t really speak for them. But certainly when it comes to book bloggers on Twitter, as the years have passed, the discourse became angrier and more frequent and instead of sharing our love of books, you frequently seemed to be expected to chime in on the Discourse of The Week and everything felt much more combative that it once had.
Everyone’s attention started turning more towards social justice issues rather than books which wasn’t an issue in and of itself, it’s important to be politically motivated and to care about issues but much like with the discourse about books, there felt, to me anyway to be very little nuance to a lot of the discussions and like a few loud voices were drowning out everyone else. You were both chided if you didn’t have an opinion, or if you shared the “wrong one”. This all really came to a head for me during Covid in 2020 when everything just became completely consumed by opinions on Covid and the book chatter kind of fell by the wayside and for me who really wanted distraction from the pandemic and had become increasingly disillusioned with Book Twitter anyway, it was the push I needed to take a step back. Of course Twitter is slowly dying now with Elon Musk’s takeover and the rebranding and everyone jumping ship but I definitely think the death of the book community on Twitter started long before the past year.
I also think everyone has moved away from longform content, whilst Bookstagram was a thing when I started blogging ten years ago, it’s definitely grown in popularity over the years and more people have turned towards doing Instagram content over blogging. This has become even more exacerbated with the rise of BookTok and I suppose it was somewhat inevitable with the way the Internet in general has been trending more towards picture/video content and less towards written content that this was going to happen. This has left me personally feeling somewhat adrift because written content has always been more my thing that pictures or videos. I’ve never been one for speaking to camera, that’s why I started a blog because I feel much more comfortable expressing myself in written form. But it has felt increasingly more and more like shouting into the void over the past few years as so many bloggers have jumped ship to other platforms or just given up on blogging altogether. I don’t blame them, publishers certainly seem to pay more attention to visual mediums than they do to written mediums these days and it seems like there are more opportunities for Bookstagrammers and BookTokers now than for bloggers and if you’re getting more engagement on those platforms then it seems very straightforward to go for the platform you’ll actually be able to engage with people on.
I’ve also seen many bloggers over the years leave blogging because of burnout, because they put so much effort into their blogs and it takes so much time and yet you get fairly little out of it, we’re not paid for doing it, publishers tend to overlook us for newer forms of media like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. I can definitely understand how book blogging could come to feel like more of an unpaid job than a joy and if you feel like you’re putting everything into it and getting fairly little out? Yeah I definitely understand why you would leave. I love writing and I love my blog, that’s why I’m still here after ten years but I can’t deny that it’s hard work and it can be disheartening when posts that I work on for hours are barely acknowledged. For me the pros still outweigh the cons but I can understand why for many, this is no longer the case.
This ended up being slightly more depressing than I was intending my tenth blogiversary post to be, I still love blogging and I wouldn’t be here ten years later if I didn’t but this is just something that has been on my mind lately and I wanted to get my thoughts about it out there. I don’t really know what the answer is to building back the community that we once had or if it is even possible, I just know that I have felt increasingly isolated as a blogger, especially in the last two years or so and whilst I still really enjoy the actual writing part of blogging, I do miss engaging with other bloggers and actually talking about books? At the moment it does very much feel like throwing my thoughts out into the void. It may be that there is no particular right answer, that we’ve all just got busy and have less time to engage with other blogs, or moved on to other platforms or that there’s just no real space for a cohesive book community anymore with everyone spread out across different platforms, we’re just not all in one place to speak to each other. All I know is that I will still be here talking about books for as long as I still enjoy doing so and just hope that in this new phase of my blogging life, I will be able to find new ways to make connections with other readers because I really do miss it.
So there we go, that’s just some of my thoughts on how and why the book blogging community has lost its way. Do you agree with me? Have you felt a lack of engagement with your own blog over the past few years? How do you find community as a book blogger, or even just as a reader? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll have another discussion post for you guys in May as I continue with the bi-monthly schedule that I started doing last year as I think that worked really well and certainly took a lot of the pressure off, not having to do a discussion post every month definitely meant I ended up doing more overall as I opposed to one or two when I actually remembered to do them. So I’ll be back in May (hopefully, it may be June as I have a lot of holiday booked in May), potentially with the return of my Bookshop Tours as I really enjoyed doing those last year but it will honestly depend on what I have time for. In the meantime, my regular Top Ten Tuesday post will be up on Tuesday, so keep an eye out for that.
Hi all! The Spring Equinox which marks the official start of Spring was a few days ago, so that means that it’s time for another Quarterly Rewind, the feature where I wrap up one season on the blog and look forward to the next one. This winter has been another fairly busy one for me, with as usual a lot of theatre, so I’m excited to tell you all about it! Today, I’ll be wrapping up winter, and looking forward to everything I have coming up over the Spring (and there are a lot of very excited things!). This post will cover from 21st December-19th March.
Image From Winter:
This is one I took back in February on one of my weekly runs just as the sun was going down over Clapham Common. Never let anyone tell you London can’t be beautiful!
Favourite Quote From A Book You Read This Winter:
“Our greatest fears are warped reflections of our greatest desires. Fear only has power when what we’re afraid of takes away the things we value most.” -City of Nightmares, Rebecca Schaeffer
I really enjoyed City of Nightmares, it was such a fun read but this quote is one of the more poignant ones from the book.
This Winter In One Word:
Busy!
Most Popular Review of The Winter:
Now as you all know, I have been horrible with keeping up with reviews over the past couple of years, I barely posted any reviews last year and I’ve not reviewed anything yet this year, I do want to sit down and do like a mini-review roundup with my thoughts on the rest of the books I didn’t get a chance to review last year, but I haven’t got around to it yet. So once again, I’m just going to share my most popular review overall and this time it’s my review of Looking For Jane. I’m thrilled this one has been so popular over the last few months as I loved this book and I don’t feel like anyone talks about it enough, so if my review has helped more people find it, then that’s awesome!
Once again, my reading has still been going very slowly, I finished 2 audiobooks and five comics over the period that this Rewind covers which is really not as much as I would have liked and they were a little bit mixed to be honest so it’s kind of hard to pick a favourite but I have tried:
City of Nightmares-Rebecca Schaeffer
Okay so technically I included this in my list of favourites for the last Rewind as well but I hadn’t actually finished it then and I don’t feel like it’s cheating to include it again now I have actually finished the book. I really enjoyed this one, it was a really fun world and concept, I loved Ness as a character and her sense of humour and it was just a really fun story. I’m not totally convinced that it needed a sequel but I enjoyed this book enough that I will probably still read the sequel.
2. ExtraOrdinary #0-VE Schwab
This first instalment of VE Schwab’s ExtraOrdinary comics was a very fun introduction to a new story in the Villains world and had me hooked on seeing what was coming next! I read the first three instalments at the end of last year and will probably get to the final two at the end of this year when I inevitably need to catch up on my Goodreads Challenge once again.
TV Shows I’m Looking Forward To Watching This Spring
I am so behind on all things TV honestly, I have so much streaming stuff that I need to catch up on from last year, let alone all the stuff that has come out this year! I finished a couple of the shows from my Winter list (largely the weekly ones showing on the BBC, Call The Midwife, and Death In Paradise whose last episode of this series airs tonight-though I still have two episodes in the series that I missed to catch up on) but I haven’t finished any of the streaming ones! Here’s what I would like to see this Spring:
Beyond Paradise Series 2
The new series of Beyond Paradise started on Friday and I’m super excited, I enjoyed the first series so much and I’m sure this next series will be just as much fun. It’s not the Caribbean but Beyond Paradise brings just as much of a smile to my face as Death In Paradise, and Humphrey was always my favourite DI so it’s great to see more of him!
2. Percy Jackson and The Olympians
Yes, I STILL haven’t watched the new Percy Jackson TV show and all the episodes are out now, so I really have no excuse except I’ve just not made the time to sit down and watch it, hopefully I will over the next few months.
3. Celebrity Bake-Off
Yes, we have more Bake-Off, the Celebrity version anyway, it started last week but I missed the first episode, so definitely need to try and catch up on that before the next episode airs tonight! I always love the celebrity episodes, they are so incredibly chaotic.
4. Sex Education Season 4
I started the fourth season of Sex Education last year but only made it to the third episode, so I really need to actually finally finish it this year.
5. Queer Eye Season 8
I always enjoy Queer Eye and the new series came out earlier this year and I still haven’t got around to watching it yet, so hopefully that’s something I will get around to watching in the next few months.
Two New Obsessions This Winter:
Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York)
I saw this new British musical at the Kiln Theatre back in January and I loved it so, so much, it’s such a funny, lovely, big hearted musical and I had such a great time watching it-I know they have just released an EP but I desperately need a full album when they go to the West End next month because I want to be able to listen to all those songs on repeat. I’m going to see it during its West End run in April and I’m so excited to see it again.
2. Overtures Piano Bar
Okay, not exactly an obsession as such but Overtures is a musical theatre piano bar in Soho and I’ve been a few times since January and it’s always a really fun and chill night out. I famously have never really liked nights out, but it turns out all I needed was somewhere with really chill people where you could belt out musical theatre tunes all night and I actually have a lot of fun!
Things I’m Looking Forward To This Spring:
I have A LOT on in the next few months, it’s going to be very busy but hopefully very exciting!
Going to lots of theatre
Yes as always, I have a lot of theatre trips planned for the next few months, so far in April, I’m going to a Taylor Swift by Candlelight concert (the same group that did the Musicals by Candlelight concert I went to in January, they do a lot of different nights like this), I’m seeing Two Strangers again, Operation Mincemeat (naturally), Wicked, a cabaret performance from two of the stars of Operation Mincemeat, Jake Malone and Claire-Marie Hall, in May I’m seeing Lucie Jones in concert and then in June I’m seeing Kathy and Stella Solve A Murder and the West End run of Next To Normal. So yeah, lots going on between now and June and I’m so excited for all of it.
2. The Olivier Awards
I decided to put this one in a separate category even though I guess it does kind of come under the going to lots of theatre umbrella. The Olivier Awards for anyone who isn’t familiar are the UK’s biggest Theatre Awards, our equivalent of the Tonys if you’re American and more familiar with them. Anyway, I’m going for the first time this year with a lot of friends I’ve met through Operation Mincemeat and it should hopefully be a really fun night spent cheering the show on in the various awards they’ve been nominated for!
3. Italy
My friend Hannah and I are going interrailing in Italy for two weeks in May, and I’m so, so excited for it, we’ve just about got everything sorted for it now and I cannot wait, we’re doing Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and Verona, most of which I’ve never been to before (I went to Naples on a school trip when I was 13) and I cannot wait to explore and eat as much pizza and pasta as is humanly possible!
4. Chicago
This year is the year of exciting holidays, I’m going to Chicago with my family at the end of May, my first time there and my first time back in the US for over ten years, I’m so excited to explore somewhere new!
5. Leigh Bardugo book event
Leigh Bardugo is coming to London again for her new book The Familiar and I’m so excited, I had so much fun at her Hell Bent event last year (though admittedly I have still yet to read the book)!
Five Most Popular Blog Posts This Winter:
It’s been really interesting seeing how these stats have changed over recent months and years, my five most popular posts were ALWAYS Top Ten Tuesday posts and then slowly the engagement with those seems to have decreased and for the second time in a row, I have no Top Tuesday posts in my top five most popular posts. It does make me sad that my Top Ten Tuesday posts have been struggling in recent months because I really do miss the community aspect of that (and my very belated 10th blogiversary discussion post is going to talk about just that when I finally get that up). I feel like it’s just my newer posts getting less engagement overall though, which is sad, much as I love seeing some of my older posts get love. Anyway, this time we have majority Book Vs Movie posts, with a couple of reviews thrown in:
Looking For Jane Review
My most viewed review of the last few months was also my most viewed post overall. It makes me really happy to see Looking For Jane getting lots of love because it’s a really great book and I think really pertinent at the moment with everything that has been going on with abortion rights, yes, in the US but also here in the UK over the past few years, we’ve been having a lot of really great steps forward but also some worrying steps back, like more women being prosecuted for abortions outside the law (which is more restrictive than many think as abortion is not actually fully decriminalised in this country, the 1967 Abortion Act provides exemptions under which abortion is legal, it does not decriminalise it. I could go on and on about this but I won’t!) so I think this story is even more important than ever at the moment and I’m glad people are finding it.
2. Book Vs Movie: Between Shades of Gray/Ashes In The Snow
This was also in my last Rewind so it’s obviously one people have been enjoying! I’m always somewhat surprised by this one because I think this film had a digital only release in the UK and wasn’t available that widely, only available to rent and not on streaming so I’m surprised that it sparks a lot of interest but then I don’t know that everyone who reads this post has watched the film. Anyway, I love the book and the film is a great adaptation so if this post is bringing more attention to them, then that’s great!
My perennial question is why is it the review of the third book of this series that seems to be the most popular and not the first? You would think more people would be finding the first book review and starting the series from that but no, for some reason, my review of Unsouled has always been the most popular out of the Unwind series and I have no idea why. But as I always say, if this is helping people find a great series of books, then more power to them!
Another perennially popular one, it’s been on every Rewind post I’ve done for the past year! I do understand the popularity of this one a little more though because I am incredibly salty about the terrible job that was done adapting the book for the screen and I think you guys always enjoy my slightly mean Book Vs Movie posts a little more than the nice ones, which makes sense as we bookworms are always bitter when filmmakers do a hack job on our favourite books.
And finally a new Book Vs Movie post, this is one I did last year! A reminder for any who didn’t know, I restarted this feature last year, though I have actually yet to do one for this year, I really need to get around to sitting down and writing one but my lack of sitting down to watch the PJO Disney+ series has somewhat hampered that. But anyway, glad you all seem to be enjoying this feature and that you’re giving my new posts some love as well as the older ones.
I once again very much flaked on bookmarking blog posts and news articles I enjoyed over the last couple of months to share with you all, hopefully I will remember to bookmark more when I next do this feature in June!
Shows I Enjoyed This Winter:
Death In Paradise Series 13
I always enjoy my yearly return to Saint Marie, though I actually missed a couple of episodes this time around that I still need to catch up on!
2. Call The Midwife Series 13
Call The Midwife is always a nice warm hug of a Sunday night TV show (when it’s not totally devastating you) and another one that I look forward to every year. I enjoyed the new midwife additions to the cast this year and looking forward to its return at Christmas.
3. Waterloo Road Series 13
I actually still have to watch the final episode of this, they moved it to a weird time on a Monday night because of the football and I totally missed that it was on, but I loved the latest series, more soapy, ridiculous and entertaining drama.
4. Mr Bates Vs The Post Office
Yes, I was one of the many that was glued to this fantastic mini-series back in January, it was so incredibly well done, the cast was brilliant, the script was brilliant, truly gripping drama based on a real miscarriage of justice and it made me so angry on behalf of all the sub-postmasters who got caught up in it. I’m very glad that the TV show seems to have brought renewed attention to their cause.
5. Nolly
Another brilliant ITV drama, I think it was on ITVX earlier in the year but I had missed that so I caught it on ITV just after Christmas. Helena Bonham Carter was fantastic in this, another really well done drama based on a real life story.
Four Things That Happened This Winter:
I saw a lot of theatre
Yes, the perennial entry for this section now as I am always seeing a lot of theatre. I saw 13 different shows over the last three months for a total of 21 performances: I saw Operation Mincemeat a LOT (we do not need exact numbers here!), Moulin Rouge twice and then The Lion King, Two Strangers (Carry A Cake Across New York), The Witches, Musicals By Candlelight, Frozen, Bronco Billy, Tit Swingers, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, We’ll Have Nun of It, Hadestown, Police Cops and London Zoo. I’ve got lots more exciting theatre coming up in the next few months and some of it isn’t even Operation Mincemeat or Moulin Rouge!
2. I went to the WhatsOnStage Awards
I went to my first theatre awards show in February, the WhatsOnStage awards, which are voted for by the general public. There were a lot of us Mincemeat fans in the Grand Circle and we all cheered very, very loudly when they won for Best New Musical. Apologies in advance to the eardrums of anyone sitting near us at the Olivier’s if they win anything because we will be equally loud!
3. I went to a really great exhibition at the British Library
My sister got me a ticket to this exhibition on Fantasy that they were doing at the British Library in January (sadly it closed in February or I would be recommending you all to go) and it was absolutely brilliant, so many cool artefacts from fantasy literature and films spanning many centuries! I’ve been to a few exhibitions at the British Library at this point and they are always so fantastically put together and really informative, so I highly recommend going to one if you ever get the chance.
4. I went to the Tom Hanks Moonwalkers Exhibition at the Lightroom with my family
For Mother’s Day, I took my mum (and dad) to the new Tom Hanks exhibition at the Lightroom which is basically a big projection show all about the various missions that have been to the Moon and the upcoming future planned moon expedition. It was really fascinating and well put together, so if you’re in London at any time before the 21st April, I definitely recommend seeing if you can get a ticket.
Six Songs I Listened To Way Too Often This Winter:
Texas Hold ‘Em-Beyonce
The new Beyonce song has been on the radio A LOT when I have been it work recently and I would like it to stop now. It’s not a bad song but I do not need to hear it several times a day!
2. And You Don’t Even Know It-Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
This song from the Jamie musical was stuck in my head for a good two weeks or so after I saw the show back in February.
3. Wait For Me-Hadestown
Once again, this song was stuck in my head for a good while after I saw the show, I’m pretty sure I actually came out of the theatre humming it.
4. Do You Hear The People Sing?-Les Miserables
I could add I Dreamed A Dream/On My Own/One Day More to this list as well to be honest because I’ve been to Overtures quite a few times since January and they always do a big run of Les Mis songs, so much so that they have been permanently stuck in my head despite me never actually having seen the show and not really liking it all that much (I will admit that is entirely based on my bad experience with the film!).
5. The Ballad of Willie Watkins-Operation Mincemeat
Everything from Operation Mincemeat is just on a permanent loop in my head at this point if I’m being completely honest.
6. Suddenly Seymour-Little Shop of Horrors
Another Overtures favourite, I’ve heard it so many times now you’d think I’d know the words, but aside from the chorus, I still don’t!
So there we have it, that’s been my Winter. It’s been another fairly busy one, but I do prefer having lots of things to do! I’ve got a lot of things planned for the next few months, between theatre trips and various holidays, it’s going to be a very busy Spring, that’s for sure, but hopefully a very exciting one. What have you enjoyed most on the blog this Winter (or Summer for my Southern Hemisphere readers)? What have you been up to? Let me know in the comments!
Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these. I was out at a Guilty Feminist podcast recording at Kings Place last night which was really fun as always, I’ve been really behind on listening to the podcast episodes so I always jump on the chance to go to the live recordings when I have the chance.
Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so time for another Top Ten Tuesday courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is from Sabrina @ Notes From A Paper Plane Nomad and is Movies/TV Shows That Would Have Made Amazing Books. This is kind of a tricky one as a lot of movies and TV shows are adapted from books anyway, so it’s hard to think of what ones aren’t and would also make a good book. I also famously have very different tastes in books and films/TV shows, so a lot of the on screen media I consume is not necessarily something I would read but it’s a fun topic and I like a challenge, so we’ll see how it goes:
13 Going On 30
I reckon this would make a really fun book, it probably wouldn’t be something I would read because though I like rom-coms, I don’t much like romantic novels but I reckon for those who do, this could be a really fun and slightly unconventional love story.
2. Miss Congeniality
Miss Congeniality would be so much fun as a book! The premise is great, an FBI agent going undercover in a beauty pageant, you have action, espionage, comedy, a little romance for those who want that, what is not to love? (though personally I would probably take out the romance because Eric ends up being an ass in the next film!)
3. Gilmore Girls
Gilmore Girls would make a great series of books, the show already features a lot of literary references so I feel like it would be quite natural to turn it into books, and it would be really fun to be able to maybe delve into some of the quirky side characters of Stars Hollow and I reckon you could do that quite well in a series of books.
4. Ghosts
How good would Ghosts be as a book series (and yes, I’m talking the British version here not the American)? Like haunted house but funny is such a good concept anyway and with a book series you could have even more time to spend with the ghosts and really delve into their lives and backstories!
5. Derry Girls
Derry Girls would be so much fun as a book, I love the show but the episodes are fairly short, I would love to have a chance to spend more time with the characters and really delve into them more in the way you could in a book series. Also really selfishly I want to know what happened with Erin and James after the final episode!
6. Good Girls
I will forever be bummed that this series was cancelled prematurely because I think it was SO GOOD but it would make such a fun book series, the premise has so much promise, three suburban mums who get drawn into criminal activities to solve their financial problems. I’d love a book series to continue where the series left off because it didn’t wrap everything up in an at all satisfying way due to the show being prematurely cancelled!
7. Mamma Mia!
I know Mamma Mia originated as a (still running) stage show and was then a film but I think it could also be a really fun book even without the ABBA music, there’s plenty of comic misunderstandings and ludicrous events that would make for a very fun story especially with the Greek island setting. I know it’s very much not the point but I would also love a book to finally confirm who Sophie’s biological father is: I’m still going with Bill as my guess.
8. Just My Luck
I apparently really love the rom-coms that involve some kind of magical element, this one is two people who are respectively extremely lucky and unlucky whose luck changes when they kiss at a party-yes the premise is a little out there, but it’s a fun concept and I reckon it could make for a really fun book.
9. The Proposal
This topic is really unfortunate when you like rom-coms but don’t like romance books because almost everything I’m suggesting is not a book I would actually read! But this would be great for fans of the enemies-to-lovers/marriage of convenience trope as the whole premise revolves around an editor having to marry her assistant for a green card.
10. The Adam Project
This would be such a fun sci-fi novel, I am not usually a big sci-fi person but I really enjoyed this film and would love to see it adapted into a novel. If you’ve not seen the film, it’s on Netflix and basically the premise is that a fighter pilot in the future goes back in time to save his wife but ends up crash landing in the wrong time and has to complete his mission with the help of his younger self. Would make a cool book, no?
So there we go, 10 Movies/TV Shows That Would Make Good Books. Have you seen any of these? Do you agree with my choices? What did you pick this week? Let me know in the comments! I actually thought this would be a lot harder than it ended up being, and it was a really fun topic to do, so thank you Sabrina!
I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, the topic this time is April Showers which I think can basically be interpreted any way we like. Now I’ve already done books with water on the cover last year, so I think I’m going to do Books With Water Related Titles, and I’m taking that fairly broadly, so anything rain, storm, sea, lightning etc will qualify.
Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, I had a lovely Friday with some of the Mincefluencers, a little group of us did standing for the show and then went out to Overtures afterwards which made for an incredibly fun Friday evening. Then last night I was at Southwark Playhouse to see a show called London Zoo, which sadly I didn’t enjoy as much as I was hoping to: I thought it would be right up my street because it’s about journalism and working in the media industry but I found it kind of bland and the characters underdeveloped, sadly not one of the better things I have seen at Southwark Playhouse, but the Q&A afterwards about power in the workplace with some industry experts, the writer and a couple of members of the cast was really interesting so at least it was worth going to for that.
Anyway, it’s Tuesday, time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week is another of our annual topics, one of our seasonal TBR lists and this time we’re sharing our Spring TBR. I did okay on my Winter TBR, I finished 6 books, if we count each of the comics individually, which I do on my Goodreads Challenge so why not here, which is better than I’ve done in a while. I’m not imagining I’ll finish a whole lot of the ones I’m putting on my Spring TBR, but I’m approaching it as I always do, these are possibilities for what I might read in the next few months, not hard and fast rules:
The Phoenix Crown-Kate Quinn and Janie Chang
This is my current audiobook, I’m liking it so far but it is a little bit slow. Surprisingly for me given that I picked up the book for Kate Quinn as I’ve enjoyed her other books, I’m enjoying Janie Chang’s character POV far more at the moment but I’m still not very far through so hopefully the other character POV will pick up. I definitely want to read more of Janie Chang’s books after this though!
2. The Fragile Threads of Power-VE Schwab
Yes, I’m still reading this and likely will be for a while as I tend to only get through small chunks at work. Still in the very early stages, but I’m enjoying it thus far and looking forward to seeing Lila and Kell again, hopefully soon!
3. I Must Betray You-Ruta Sepetys
I really do need to just sit down and finish this in the next few months, I am so so close to the end, but I can’t read two physical books at once, so it will have to wait till I’m done with Threads of Power.
4. The Bandit Queens-Parini Shroff
I’m feeling in the mood for something fun and this story about a woman who unwittingly gets drawn into helping women in her village in India get rid of their no good husbands after her own mysteriously disappears and everyone thinks she killed him? Definitely sounds like a lot of fun!
5. How To Solve Your Own Murder-Kristin Perrin
This has such a fabulous premise for a murder mystery: a woman who is told by a fortune teller that she will be murdered spends her whole life trying to solve her murder before it happens, then when it eventually does, her great-niece has to use the clues her great-aunt gathered throughout her life to solve the murder. What a brilliant idea for a story and I cannot wait to read it.
6. The Secret History of Audrey James-Heather Marshall
I have been incredibly impatiently waiting for a new book by Heather Marshall ever since I read and loved Looking For Jane in 2022, so you’d best believe that when her new book releases in June that it will be shooting straight to the top of my TBR!
7. Her Majesty’s Royal Coven-Juno Dawson
I’ve been meaning to read this one for ages, maybe this Spring will finally be the time I get around to it?
8. Cage of Dreams-Rebecca Schaeffer
This is the sequel to City of Nightmares which I read earlier in the year. To be honest I didn’t feel like City of Nightmares really needed a sequel which is why I didn’t rush into this one straight after, but I would like to finish the series before the end of the year.
9. The Air Raid Book Club-Annie Lyons
This was one I meant to read last year but never got around to, and I’d like to get around to it this year. It gives me very Last Bookshop In London vibes and I really enjoyed that one, so I’m looking forward to seeing how I find this.
10. Suddenly A Murder-Lauren Munoz
This is another murder mystery I meant to read last year but never got around to and sounds like a nice, short fun one. It’s a locked room mystery set at a 1920s themed end of year party and when one friend ends up dead, all the others become suspects. Sounds great no? Hopefully it lives up to the promise of the premise!
So there we go, those are the books on my Spring TBR. I’m sure I won’t finish all of them, but it’s a nice list of options to have for the next few months. What’s on your Spring TBR? Do we share any? Have you read any of these? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, next week we’re talking Movies/TV Shows That Would Have Made Amazing Books. It’s going to be a challenge to find ones that aren’t books already since there are so many book-to-screen adaptations out there already, but I’ll do my best!
Hi all, I hope you’ve had a good week since I last did one of these! I had a lovely day off from work on Thursday, some friends from Mincemeat were back in the UK over the weekend and we all went to Police Cops at Southwark Playhouse on Thursday afternoon which was really fun, if you’ve not heard of it, Police Cops is a comedy musical about the US police in the 1980s, it’s completely absurd and ridiculous and a lot of fun and it’s running until the 20th April so if that’s something you think would interest you and you’re in the UK between now and then, then give it a go. We were also at Overtures on Friday night which was a lot of fun as always since Friday was International Women’s Day, for the first few hours all the songs were feminist musical theatre anthems which was great.
Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl. Now this week’s topic is meant to Books I’m Worried I Might Not Love As Much The Second Time Around but honestly, I really don’t reread at all these days so it seems like kind of a redundant topic for me personally. So instead, I thought I would try something fun and slightly niche, it was Olivier Award announcement day today (Operation Mincemeat got six nominations, the Mincemeat Discord went crazy, fun times were had all round), so to celebrate I’m going to do a “If You Liked This, Try This” Olivier edition, matching the nominated musicals (I haven’t seen enough of the plays to do it for them and we would be here all day if I did) to books with similar themes/vibes. Now I will admit, there are a couple of shows I’ve not seen, but I will do my best to match them based on what I know about them! So here we go (these are in no particular order. I apologise in advance for my non-matching size pictures, me and the WordPress block editor still hate each other!).
If you liked Guys and Dolls, try Ace of Shades:
If you like Guys and Dolls dice playing sinners vibes, then may I introduce you to Ace of Shades, a fantasy set in the City of Sin where casinos are a huge part of the plot and the dynamic between Enne and Levi is quite similar to the dynamic that Sarah and Sky have in Guys and Dolls, Enne is the straight laced proper young lady and Levi is a street lord: except Ace of Shades is much more satisfying because Enne ultimately gets drawn into the City of Sin which you have to agree is so much more fun that the straight laced woman ultimately reforming the “bad boy”.
2. If you liked Hadestown, try The Song of Achilles
If your vibe is Greek mythology retellings about two lovers whose story you ultimately know will end tragically, may I direct you towards The Song of Achilles. I’ll admit I didn’t personally love it but for a tragic retelling of Greek mythology, it certainly fits the bill and that’s all I’m looking for here!
3. If you liked Next To Normal, try The Illustrated Mum
Next To Normal is all about how one family deals with a parent’s mental illness and The Illustrated Mum, whilst a children’s book so about younger children than Natalie in Next To Normal, deals with much the same themes: the mother Marigold has bipolar disorder, and the story follows her daughter Dolphin and sister Star and how her mental illness affects them so I think people who liked Next To Normal would definitely resonate with the themes here, even if it is aimed at a younger audience. Child me is still scarred by that one scene where Marigold covers herself in white paint though!
4. If you liked Groundhog Day, try Life After Life
It’s not quite living the same day over and over again but if you enjoy the time loop premise of Groundhog Day, then Life After Life follows a very similar premise, with the main character Ursula dying and being reborn again multiple times throughout her life so like Phil Connors, she is also stuck in an endless loop of her own life, it’s just over a longer period than a singular day and she also learns over the course of her various lives and is able to change things in the next life based on knowledge she gained in the previous one.
5. If you liked Sunset Boulevard, try Gone Girl
Okay so Sunset Boulevard and Gone Girl have nothing in common in terms of plot or setting but I feel like people who enjoyed watching Norma Desmond become progressively more unhinged over the course of Sunset Boulevard would really appreciate seeing the way Amy Dunne’s character unravels throughout Gone Girl: Amy isn’t mentally ill like Norma is, she’s more calculating but I feel like people who enjoy the unhinged nature of Norma Desmond would definitely enjoy how unhinged Amy Dunne is.
6. If you liked The Little Big Things, try Under Rose Tainted Skies
This was another one that was hard for me to choose one for because again, I didn’t see this show (I didn’t see the most recent version of Sunset either but I did watch the Curve’s production online during the pandemic so I have at least seen a version of that) and also because once again, I have not read a huge number of books with characters with disabilities, partly because I need to diversify my own reading but also publishing is still quite lacking when it comes to disability representation. But in the end, I decided to go for Under Rose Tainted Skies because like Henry, Norah faces challenges with her disability (she has agoraphobia and OCD which have a very disabling effect on her life) and the book covers her struggles dealing with her mental illnesses. From the sounds of The Little Big Things, that show is a little more positive and motivational than this, Norah’s story is quite raw and could be hard to read at times but I think people who enjoyed The Little Big Things and are looking for more authentic stories about disabled characters (albeit a character with a mental illness rather than physical disability here) would enjoy this one.
7. If you liked A Strange Loop, try Noughts and Crosses
I struggled so hard with this one because I haven’t actually seen the show and it’s a very specific story of which I have never really read anything similar. I tried to find books about writers that I had read since the musical is about a guy trying to write a musical but I couldn’t really find any that fit that particular meta aspect nor have I particularly read too many books about black gay men (yes, I do need to read more diversely) so I thought I would go with Noughts and Crosses as it’s a book that got me to think differently about the Black experience? It’s a very tenuous link but I was really struggling with this one having not seen the show and Noughts and Crosses is a fantastic book anyway, so I feel like it’s always good to recommend!
8. If you liked Operation Mincemeat, try The Rose Code
I swear I did not choose The Rose Code simply because it has yellow artwork! If you enjoyed the spies aspect of Operation Mincemeat and the focus on overlooked contributions to WWII, I genuinely think The Rose Code would be right up your street, it’s not a comedy but it does focus on the overlooked contributions of women to the war effort with the story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park so I think there would definitely be themes in this that fans of Operation Mincemeat would enjoy and relate to.
So there we go, that’s my If You Liked This, Try This Olivier Awards edition! That was a LOT harder and took me a lot longer than I thought it would, so this is now going live on Wednesday rather than Tuesday but it was a lot of fun to do and I do like challenging myself with these posts where I can. Have you read any of these books? Seen any of these shows? What did you think of them? Would you offer different book recommendations for any of these shows? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back next week with one of my annual favourite topics, yes, it’s that time of year again, it’s TBR time! Next week we’re doing our Spring TBR so I can tell you all about the books I plan to (and will probably fail to!) read this Spring.
Hi all! I hope you’ve all had a good week since I last did one of these, mine was incredibly busy as I was covering for the other receptionist at work so I did my first full week of work in ages and it was definitely a bit of a shock to the system not having my usual two mid-week days off. But it wasn’t all work and no fun, I won the Operation Mincemeat lottery a couple of weeks ago and had my lottery trip last Tuesday, so that was brilliant as always and then on Friday, I saw Hadestown which I’ve been wanting to come to London for ages and I was not disappointed, it was a fantastic show (even if the legroom in the theatre left something to be desired: Lyric if my knees are almost up near my chin and I am a short person, your seats do not have enough legroom!).
Anyway, it’s Tuesday, so time for another Top Ten Tuesday, courtesy of Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is meant to be Weird or Funny Things We’ve Googled Thanks To A Book but I honestly don’t think I have many of these, the main things I’ve googled thanks to books have been real historical events and I can’t really remember much else so it would be a very short list. So instead, I thought I’d just twist it a little and share some Books Based On Real Historical People since those are generally who I google most when reading so it ties into the topic well. Here we go:
The Diamond Eye-Kate Quinn
The Diamond Eye is based on the true story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko who became the deadliest female sniper in history during WWII, the story follows both her war service and diplomatic efforts in the US where she was sent after being injured on the battlefield in order to try and persuade the US government to lend their support to the war effort. Mila was an absolutely fascinating and incredible woman and I loved learning more about her through this book.
2. The Alice Network-Kate Quinn
Not every character in this one is based on a real person but there are lots who are, the most interesting to me being “Lili”, a fictionalised version of the real life leader of the actual Alice Network, Louise De Bettignies, who just sounded like such an absolute firecracker and I came out of the book desperate to learn more about her. Sadly as with many historical women, there’s not a whole lot of information out there about her but what I could find was absolutely fascinating.
3. Resistance Women-Jennifer Chiaverini
I have to admit, this wasn’t actually my favourite from a enjoyment perspective, I didn’t hate it but I felt like it tried to cram too many years of history into too short a book (and it was actually quite a long book which shows how ambitious the author was being!). However the real life people behind the story were absolutely fascinating (and one of my biggest issues with the book was I wasn’t sure Jennifer Chiaverini really got that across well enough) and I so enjoyed going down a Google rabbit hole afterwards to learn more about Mildred Fish-Harnack and her husband Arvid, Adam and Greta Kuckhoff and all the other members of the Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra).
4. Her Hidden Genius-Marie Benedict
Again, I wasn’t a huge fan of the actual book, I felt it was kind of dry book for a story about someone who was actually a very fascinating woman but I loved learning more about Rosalind Franklin and still feel very indignant for her that she never achieved the kind of recognition that she should have for her work in discovering the structure of DNA.
5. The Mad Girls of New York-Maya Rodale
Nellie Bly was just the most incredible woman and it’s mad that we don’t learn more about her in school because what she did going undercover at Blackwell’s asylum was such a bold and dangerous thing to do and she actually managed to create real change for the women in that asylum with her articles which is everything you really want to be able to do as an investigative journalist, and I find it slightly mad that she was never even mentioned once in my journalism course at uni!
6. Romanov-Nadine Brandes
I did actually prefer Nadine Brandes’ other historical fantasy, Fawkes but the large majority of the main characters in that are fictional other than the actual conspirators of the Gunpowder plot whereas in this book, the main characters are largely the real members of the Romanov family. I did have a few issues with how the Romanovs are portrayed in this, particularly Tsarina Alexandra who seems to get cast into the weak sickly woman role when in actuality she had a great deal of influence over her husband. However for a YA historical fantasy where the main focus is the fantasy rather than the history, it was an enjoyable reimagining of the downfall of the Romanovs.
7. Hamilton and Peggy!: A Revolutionary Friendship-LM Elliott
There’s not a whole lot that we know about the real life Peggy Schuyler because she died so young and documentation was scarce back then but apparently her going back to save her baby sister when the Schuyler family home was invaded by Redcoats was something that was documented in the Schuyler family documents which I thought was very cool. It was also fun to get more of an insight into Peggy and Hamilton’s relationship as they were actually very close as evidenced by letters between the two, which is something that naturally the musical doesn’t really have time to explore. I definitely went down a few rabbit holes trying to learn more about Peggy after reading this book, though as I said at the top, there is frustratingly little out there.
8. The Rose Code-Kate Quinn
The large majority of the characters in The Rose Code are fictional but there are a few characters who are based on real people or fictionalised versions of real people. Osla Kendall, one of the main trio of the book is based off the real life Osla Benning who really was a linguist at Bletchley Park based in Hut 4 and really was involved in a relationship with Prince Phillip. Obviously there are many details that are fictionalised but Quinn’s portrayal of Osla pulls heavily from the real Osla Benning.
So there we go, 8 books with characters based on real historical people! I thought I had more of these but evidently I have more books like this on my TBR than I have actually already read. Have you read any of these books? Did you enjoy them? What are some of your favourite books you’ve read that are based on real historical people? Let me know in the comments!
I’ll be back next week with another Top Ten Tuesday, this time we’re talking Books I’m Worried I Might Not Love As Much Second Time Around. I’m not sure if I’ll do this topic or not as I don’t really reread these days but we shall see.
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